Souper Spectacular, a 3 yr old 1/2 brother to Zenyatta , by Giant's Causeway, broke his maiden on the Saratoga turf today in his 3rd start.....he stalked the pace, took over midstretch and won by about 2 lengths.....he went off at 6-1.....I'm not stupid....GC and a Kris S mare kid on the turf??? $$$$ And he looks nothing like his big sis, being an average 16h ish chestnut....lol...but he has those big , wide 'platter' grass hooves!

I thought that blood line were on synthetic specialist?Really surprised it was Saratoga cause I thought they also preferred the California synthetic surface and used condoms.

What a fricking surprise.

Really? I never read anyone on this forum claiming a certain champion was only bred for the poly.

However, when this broodmare's more famous offspring actually runs on the turf, then we can evaluate that one. Until such time as her connections grow a pair and try that, any speculation about the turf ability of specific horses that never raced over it is nothing but hot air.

Except, of course, in the Z- universe, where she never has to actually run and win a race before her rabid fans give her the win.

I thought that blood line were on synthetic specialist?Really surprised it was Saratoga cause I thought they also preferred the California synthetic surface and used condoms.

What a fricking surprise.

Giant's Causeway is more of a turf sire type as he raced predominately on the grass in Europe and so far, most of his offspring seems to prefer that surface....the broodmare sire, Kris S, is also a known turf 'preferred' sire...hence Souper Spectacular was a no brainer in that race to run well on the grass...with maidens, esp 2 yr old first timers and few starters, that's all you have to go on is the breeding and if they have any, turf works....Barbaro's sire Dynaformer is a classic example : see a Dynaformer baby on grass and bet it!! Barbaro was a grass horse until matz decided to try him on the dirt....he ended up being a damn good multi surface runner.....other 'turf' sires when betting maidens i always used to look for were Known Fact, Royal Academy,Cozzene and Gone West and with nybreds now i use the Freud's(Giant's full brother) alot...my fave horse's baby maidens, Elusive Quality, i use on both turf and dirt and they all seem to run on both surfaces quite well, like their daddy did...Secretariat, altho he was blazing on the grass, was never thought of as a predominately turf sire....he just set records on all surfaces...yrs ago, a 'turf' horse had bigger, wider, 'platter' feet....and that 'trait' seems to still hold to true to some extent today.....i don't think there will ever be 'synthetics bloodlines'....horses trained at a track that has it learn to run on it....like dirt horses do on dirt tracks.....and horses with a grass type pedigree tend to like the synths better than conventional dirt, perhaps due to the 'give' in the surface(except on hard baked turf courses from little rain which favor speed horses)..Michael Dickinson pretty much proved this by training his horses over his farm's tapeta syth surface and shipping them in to run on the grass and win......they also ran and won on the dirt(Tapit was a big one)....'most' turf bred horses can't get out of their own way on a conventional dirt surface ...'most'....but there have been many good horses who are exceptions to that rule.....